"Frederick Schiller!" cried Körner, interrupting him, while Göschen turned away, his lips trembling, and his eyes filled with tears; "Frederick Schiller, now you are unjust; and that, a friend must not be, even in his deepest grief. Vile dross has nothing to do with this sacrifice of friendship, and it was not for its sake that we undertook the thankless office of making the blind see. You well know that Göschen is a noble and disinterested friend, who rejoiced in being permitted to help the poet of Don Carlos out of his difficulties, but it is, of course, painful to him to see the loving, confiding man, squander what the poet earns."
"It is true, it is true!" cried Schiller, "I am unjust! I reproach you instead of reproaching myself, and myself only. Oh, my friends, forgive these utterances of my anguish, consider what I endure! You are both so happy; you have all that can lend a charm to life, and adorn it. You are wealthy, you do not know what it is to have to contend with want, and to struggle for existence, nor have you any knowledge of that more painful struggle, the warfare of life without love, without some being who loves you, and is wholly yours. You, my friends, have loved and loving wives, who are yours with every fibre of their being. You have also well-appointed households, and are provided with all that is requisite to enable you to exercise a generous hospitality. But, look at me, the solitary, homeless beggar, who calls nothing on earth his own but that spark of enthusiasm which burns in his heart, who must flee to the ideal, in order to escape the too rude grasp of reality. Why must I alone rise from the richly-laden table of life with unsatisfied hunger? Why are the stars, for me, merely candles of the night, that give me light in my labors, and the sun only an economical heating apparatus, to which I am only in so far indebted as it saves me expensive fuel for my stove in winter. Grant me my portion of the repast which the gods have prepared for all mortals, let me also partake of the golden Hesperian fruit. My friends, have pity on the poor wanderer, who has been journeying through the desert of life, and would now recline on the green oasis and rest his weary limbs!" He sank down into a chair, and covered his quivering face with his trembling hands.